The word originates from the ancient Greekcity-states, which developed during the Archaic period and existed well into Roman times, when the equivalent Latin word was civitas, that means 'citizenhood' as well.

An ancient polis often centered around a citadel, called the acropolis. Nearly always it had an agora (market) and typically one or more temples and a gymnasium. Many citizens of a polis did not live in the central city but in the suburbs or countryside. The Greeks regarded the polis as a religious and political association: while the polis would control territory and colonies beyond the city itself, the polis would not simply consist of a geographical area.

The names of several other towns and cities in Europe and the Middle East have contained the suffix "-polis" since antiquity; or currently feature modernized spellings, such as "-pol". Some of the examples are: